Port Chester Decides Whether To Keep Cumulative Voting

PORT CHESTER, NY — Cumulative voting has been in place in the Village of Port Chester for the last three elections of trustees, and it will now be the permanent way trustees are chosen.

Village voters approved the voting method at the polls Wednesday 746 to 429, the Journal News said.

Under cumulative voting, each voter gets to cast as many votes as there are positions that can be filled.

In the 2019 election, up to six votes can be cast by every voter, but it only applies to elections for trustees.

In 2007, a federal judge ruled that the village was in violation of the Voting Rights Act and that the at-large voting system discriminated against the village's Latino voters, who were roughly 20 percent of the total number of registered voters.

The judge ordered the village to institute the cumulative voting system that the time.

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